


Pietoso

by shiromori



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Emotional Manipulation, Gen, fake woobie!Hannibal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 22:43:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1566701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shiromori/pseuds/shiromori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b><i>Pietoso</i></b> <i>(adj, adv)</i> /pjeˈtoso/ -<br/><i>With pity or sympathy.  As a musical direction, meaning to be played in a manner such as to evoke pity or compassion</i>.</p><p>Set directly after the events of "Mukozuke", Alana visits Hannibal in the hospital.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pietoso

Alana woke up with a crick in her neck. She levered herself up stiffly from her partially slouched position in the chair. The nurse gave her a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure I could find you a bed if you’d like to lie down,” she offered, but Alana shook her head.

“What time is it?” her voice was dry and slurred with sleep. The room was dim, shuttered. The noise beyond was muted, but it was never entirely quiet in a hospital, no matter the hour.

The nurse glanced at her watch. “Just a little after five.” She checked the fluid level in the IV bag and made a note. “There’s a coffee machine in the lounge down the hall,” she said, and Alana nodded her thanks as the nurse left to continue her rounds.

Their quiet conversation hadn't woken Hannibal. He was sleeping peacefully. Alana watched the slow rise and fall of his breathing, comforted by the soft, steady sound. She looked at the deep, livid bruise under his jaw and pushed away the memory of him hanging, kicking and swinging helplessly. Only for a few seconds before Jack intervened, quickly enough to prevent any real damage, but it was a scene she never wanted to relive again: Hannibal suspended, crucified like a martyr, streaming blood. So much blood. She knew how easily it could have ended differently.

Alana’s hand reached out to cover Hannibal’s where it lay limply against the blanket. From his wrists nearly to his elbows, both arms were bandaged. Both radial veins had been opened; he’d needed a transfusion, 47 stitches. An IV still dripped fluids into him. Alana looked at his hand, clasped in hers, so she would not have to look at the needle, the tubing, the bandages. Against the sterile white dressings, his skin had a sallow cast. An old scar, faint and silvered ran down the back of his hand in a nearly straight line between his second and third fingers. A careless slip with a knife, she would have guessed, but she had never known Hannibal to do anything carelessly. She followed the line of the scar lightly with her fingers and wondered what other scars he might bear that she knew nothing about. More after today. But it was the ones she couldn't see that worried her most.

Hannibal’s hand shifted under hers, and she looked up to find him awake and watching her with half-lidded eyes. “Hi,” she said, with a hushed tone and a warm if somewhat strained smile. She saw Hannibal’s eyes sweep the room and, guessing his thoughts, she said, “Jack was here. He stayed until they admitted you, and I sent him home. I didn't think it would be good for him, two sleepless nights in a row.” Jack had spent too many hours in the last forty-eight in hospital rooms. First Bella’s and now Hannibal’s.

Before that, it had been Will Graham’s.

“He’ll have to make a statement,” Alana said. So would she. She and Jack had both witnessed the scene at the pool. She had spoken to Abel Gideon. She’d spoken to Will. She still didn't know what she was going to say. She hadn't recognised Will in the hollow man who’d spoken of doing what had to be done. She didn't recognise him in the scars he’d left on Dr. Lecter.

“Will…” Hannibal’s voice was a laboured croak pulled from his bruised throat. He couldn't be asking for the man, and a new surge of grief welled up because Alana knew why he’d struggled to speak Will’s name. Hannibal knew Will had tried to kill him. Tried to have him killed. The distinction hardly seemed meaningful.

Alana gripped Hannibal’s hand, felt his fingers press hers with nothing of their usual strength or surety. She looked up, rather than at his face, her eyes wide to stay the fall of tears. “I should have guessed,” she said on a long breath. “I knew he blamed you, but I thought he was moving past that. He was getting better. I thought… I never thought he could be capable of something like this.”

“Neither did I,” Hannibal rasped. “It’s hard to… accept… that I could have… been so wrong.”

Now the tears did fall, and Alana sniffed, dashing them away angrily with the back of her hand. Hannibal’s other hand moved, reaching for her, hesitated when the IV line pulled. _He_ was trying to comfort _her_ even now. “It’s not your fault,” Alana said, and her voice wavered, but her tone was firm. Inwardly, she asked herself: could they all have been so wrong? She had always believed that Will’s illness was to blame for his crimes, that he was innocent in spirit if not in fact. But the Will Graham she’d spoken to last night had been lucid and focused. He’d made a conscious choice, and here was the result: a man had nearly died last night - a man who had never done anything but try to be his friend. Had she let her feelings for Will blind her to what she didn't want to see? She forced herself to look now at Hannibal, ashen-faced, pained and shaken. Will’s work, all of it. Will’s design. The thought was raw and painful, but she couldn’t resist returning to it, like probing at a wound. “Will was hurting over Beverly Katz. I told Jack not to send him. I knew it wouldn't be good for him. But what happened to her, seeing her like that - it was too much for him. He felt responsible. He needed someone to blame, someone to punish.”

Hannibal closed his eyes. She saw him swallow with difficulty. He tried to speak again: “He still be-... believes I am… a murder-” Hannibal’s voice cracked, and his words were cut off by a bout of coughing that left him gasping audibly and Alana reaching for the nurse’s call button. He stopped her with a shake of his head, and after a moment, he gave a deep sigh and quieted.

Alana smoothed the blanket over Hannibal’s chest with a gentle hand. “Will is delusional,” she said. “His conscious mind can’t accept the reality of what he’s done, so he’s built this… fantasy to protect himself. Deep down, he knows you aren't responsible, but he can’t see that right now.”

Hannibal turned his face away from her on the pillow, but she saw his jaw tense, saw the corner of his mouth turn down. She felt suddenly as if she was intruding on a very private grief. If Alana’s faith was shaken, she couldn't imagine the betrayal Hannibal must be feeling. He had steadfastly refused to turn his back on Will. Even in the face of the ugliest accusations, he’d done everything he could to help… and he’d nearly died for it. She wanted to tell him, _You’re allowed to be angry_. Anger was easier to process. It didn't gnaw at a heart the way guilt did. And she knew Hannibal felt it. She knew he was asking himself how he had failed so completely, because she was asking herself the same thing. But there was only so much either of them could do to protect Will from himself.

Alana respected Hannibal as a fellow professional, and she didn't presume to tell him how to treat a patient - even one she was so personally invested in - but as a friend, she couldn't stand by and watch him continue to push himself like this out of some misplaced sense of obligation. “I know you want to help,” she said sympathetically, “but until Will is ready to face the truth, it may be best - for both of you - if you stepped back.”

Hannibal’s indrawn breath sounded pained. “Who… knows Will… better than we do?” The ruin of his voice made the words sound broken, entreating.

Alana bowed her head in concession. Hannibal had always been dedicated - almost stubbornly so. It was part of the reason she had suggested his name to Jack all those months ago. It felt like years, now. So much had changed. Her worst fear for Will had been realised, and she couldn't blame Jack - not anymore than she blamed herself, which was to say very much so. She knew Hannibal felt the same burden of responsibility, felt it keenly and personally. He wasn't going to walk away if he thought there was the slightest chance that he could still reach the Will Graham that he knew.

But Alana wondered desolately how well they truly knew Will Graham at all.


End file.
